Search form

Rep. Louie Gohmert's Challenge to America

Why we must defend global freedom and fight Islamic tyranny.

It is not often one hears a member of the U.S. House of Representatives refer to the building of a global Caliphate in the Middle East -- something which both Christians and non-Islamist Muslims in that part of the world take very seriously. The idea of a coming global Caliphate is hardly even on the radar for most members of Congress. But in his House floor speech broadcast on C-SPAN last Friday, July 19, 2013, U.S. Representative Louis Gohmert (TX-01) did just that.

Speaking for almost an hour, Gohmert warned that we were witnessing "the rise of a new Ottoman Empire in the Middle East, which, unfortunately, the Obama Administration has helped jumpstart." He also declared that the rising of the people of Egypt against a radical Islamist Muslim Brotherhood government has caused the “grand scheme of building a great Caliphate” to run into a “huge problem.” The Texas Republican called for the United States government to once again be seen as supporting and defending those seeking true freedom and democracy.

Congressman Gohmert contrasted the so-called Arab Spring with the current "major, incredible, earthshaking revolution going on in Egypt." He assessed frankly the Obama Administration’s promotion of the Arab “Spring” and contrasted this with how the United States government and most of the mainstream media now appear to be at odds with those resisting the domination of radical Islam. In addition, Gohmert, who is Vice Chair of the House Judiciary subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security, connected the dots between the Obama Administration's foreign policy, United States national security, and the increasing persecution of Christians, Jews, and other religious minorities in Islam-dominated parts of the world.

According to foreign policy and terrorism expert Dr. Walid Phares, one House observer called Gohmert’s speech "the most powerful speech in the defense of reformers, democracy seekers, seculars, Christian Copts, and Muslim moderates in Egypt in the history of the US Congress, to date." But the congressman’s speech was even more than that. It was a defense of reformers in Egypt and beyond, and it was an education in foreign policy for those who have ears to hear.

Speaking of Libya, Gohmert said that it seemed clear that Ghadafi had stopped supporting terrorism after the U.S. took out Saddam Hussein in 2003. Libya, Algeria, and Mali were actually focused on combating Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) terrorism in the Sahel region. Gohmert recollected how they were told that the U.S. has “no national security interest in Libya” by then Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, but that President Obama decided, with the support of 57 Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) states, as well as NATO states that get oil from Libya, to use U.S. assets to take out Ghadafi.

“Consistency is very important in foreign policy, and yet we don’t seem to be very consistent in using our military powers to oust Ghadafi after he had had a 'conversion experience' and was doing what he could to help us fight terrorism,” said Gohmert. This was especially troubling after there was intelligence that Al Qaeda was backing rebels. “We knew that there were radical Islamists trying to drive Ghadafi out,” Gohmert continued, “and this administration did not pause long enough to get an answer to the question: ‘If we drive Ghadafi out, would we be more safe in America or less safe?’” Benghazi appears to have answered that question.

Gohmert warned of similar inconsistency in actions being contemplated in Syria. The congressman revealed that “it looked like initially these were not al Qaeda backed rebels in Syria, and if we had acted quickly enough, and had someone who did not vote ‘present,’ we could have helped rebels who were not al Qaeda rebels.” But the situation has degenerated, Gohmert lamented. “You have a tyrant leader on one hand, and you have radical Islamists – most of whom would like to destroy the United States as well – challenging him,” he declared. “Where in the world is the interest in spilling American blood or treasure in getting into Syria?” he demanded.

Returning to Egypt, Gohmert described President Morsi’s overreaches of power, the brutality towards the Copts and other Christians, and the drafting of an Islamic constitution in November 2012 that was boycotted by the Christians and liberal secularists alike. These led to the pro-democracy and freedom group Tamarud’s petition for Morsi to step down and for new elections to be held. Ensuring that Egyptian revolution statistics will be enshrined in the congressional record, Gohmert told how that petition garnered over 22 million signatures and noted the 33 million protesters at one demonstration. He exclaimed, “There has never been a demonstration of as many as 20 million people! But the people of Egypt rose up. They recognized that radical Islamists in charge of their country were not a good thing, even if the leaders of our country in the Executive Branch could not see the obvious.”

Gohmert also described the Egyptian people’s anger that their revolution was being described as a "military coup" and that "they were furious at how CNN seemed to take the side of the Muslim Brotherhood over and over." Gohmert wanted the American people to know what really is happening in Egypt and its significance and so returned to the looming danger of a global Caliphate and how the “major, incredible, earthshaking revolution,” of moderate Muslims, Coptic Christians, and liberal secularists who oppose radical Islam “rose up in greater numbers than has ever arisen anywhere in the world in the whole history of mankind.”And in contrast to anything that U.S. foreign policy was doing, because of “these incredible, freedom-desiring Egyptians,” said Gohmert, “this grand scheme of building a great Caliphate, a new Ottoman Empire, ran into a huge problem.” The American people need to recognize, and be encouraged, not by the Arab winter that was originally called an Arab “Spring,” but by “the true Spring that is now happening in Egypt as moderate Muslims and Coptic Christians and caring secularists have arisen together and said 'No!' to radical Islam,” he said.

Gohmert displayed photographs showing the millions and millions of people who demonstrated for freedom. There were also examples of posters denouncing Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood, radical Islam, and, thanks to U.S. foreign policy, posters condemning not just CNN, but President Obama and U.S. Ambassador to Egypt, Anne Patterson, as Muslim Brotherhood supporters and labeling Patterson the "New Supreme Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood." Gohmert said that he did not support the signs nor think that they were correct, but that it was important to know what the people of Egypt's perceptions are about the United States government, based upon our actions. “Of course, the United States government does not support terrorism," he remonstrated, but “this nation, this Administration, has supported terrorists in Libya, in Egypt, and is now trying to get support for terrorists in Syria,” so it is understandable that Egyptians would accuse us of supporting terrorism.

Issuing a call for the United States to return to a position of strength, Gohmert voiced concerns about the weakening of American national security, caused by the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists throughout the United States government. Using the Boston bombing as an example, Gohmert talked about how we were “given information that was not properly utilized because of the handcuffing that has gone on” within the FBI, the intelligence community, and the State Department, in the purging of training material. He quoted one intelligence officer who said that this action kept us “from seeing who our enemy is.”

Gohmert also explained that a strong United States, supporting reformers that we can trust and hold accountable would be a help to Christians around the world who are facing increasing persecution, torture, and death. “This great nation, that arose based on Judeo-Christian ethics,” stood “idly by,” while there was still a vast American presence, said Gohmert, as the last Christian church in Afghanistan closed and as the last publicly-declared Jew left the country. Gohmert invoked the memory of John Quincy Adams arguing for the freedom of the Africans of the Amistad in the old Supreme Court chamber below them, and also invoked the “Judge of all judges” to hold America accountable "to stand with free nations and be friends of free nations."

“Some of us have a fear that if we do not do more to support truth and justice and the American ideals that this country was founded on, there will come a day of judgment,” Gohmert confessed in his closing remarks. On national security and the U.S. government’s obligation to support the Constitution and protect it from all enemies, foreign and domestic, Gohmert spoke of how before Morsi’s arrest, a Muslim Brotherhood official in Egypt had boasted that there are “six Muslim Brotherhood members that are high level confidantes” in important advisory positions in this administration. He explained that the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States did not need to use violence because they were so effective at infiltrating the government.

Gohmert blasted the acquiescence to the Islamism in America that is threatening our national sovereignty. “The truth is that anyone . . . that wants to subvert our Constitution to Shariah Law is an enemy of the United States,” he declared. These are the people “from whom we took an oath to protect our Constitution and this country,” he continued. Gohmert contrasted the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists with the people of Egypt who, he said, had arisen and made clear that they did not want radical Islamists running their country, nor to see Christians persecuted. “Those are the kind of people this nation should befriend,” Gohmert declared, “and not try to rush in and shore up those who would persecute, torture, and kill Christians, and Jews, and secularists who just want to be free.”

Congressman Gohmert’s message was not new information to many, but what was new, and quite earthshaking in its own way, was the fact that this speech was given by a U.S. representative on the floor of the House and before the C-SPAN cameras. The congressman’s words have been a great encouragement to the Egyptian people. Walid Phares reported that Gohmert’s speech has been widely viewed in Egypt. Phares also said that because of the speech, “a number of members of the European Parliament will be making stronger comments about Egypt and asking their governments to side with civil society and shift away from the Ikhwan (Muslim Brotherhood).” Just as the Egyptian people launched a freedom revolution, one House observer declared that “Gohmert has launched a moral revolution in U.S. foreign policy.” But he needs all the help he can get from Americans who understand the truth of what he says because getting his colleagues in Congress to rise up and support that revolution may prove more difficult than mobilizing 33 million Egyptians to fight for freedom.